Anger over motorbikes’ inclusion
The Motor Industry Association (MIA) has been surprised to learn legislation that enables the clean car standard (CCS) to come into effect on January 1 also applies to importers of road-going motorbikes.
The Land Transport Clean Vehicles Amendment Act applies to any motor vehicle that weighs less than 3,500kg, but goes on to define vehicles that will incur penalties or earn credits under CCS as being light passenger vehicles or light commercials.
“It all comes down to interpretation of the act, and whether the section on the CCS only applies to light passenger and commercial vehicles, or all light vehicles,” says Mark Stockdale, pictured, the MIA’s principal technical adviser.
“The problem is that under the act any importer has to set up a CO2 account and record the emissions values of all light vehicles they import before they can be registered. This includes motorcycles and potentially electric bicycles, even if they aren’t subject to penalties or credits.
“The MIA was under the impression the act only applied to cars, SUVs, utes and vans. It was incredulous to recently learn from officials that all importers of light vehicles have to set up a CO2 account by December 1.
“What makes it more farcical is that motorcycle importers can’t obtain CO2 data for their motorbikes, so they can’t enter any data in the CO2 account and they have no CO2 targets under the act anyway.”
Stockdale describes this as a “pointless exercise and a mistake in the drafting of the act, which will put motorcycle importers to unnecessary extra work”.
He adds: “What with the roll-out of the clean car discount causing issues for used-car importers in particular, this mistake will create new problems for both new and used motorcycle importers, and other vehicles which are also meant to be exempt, such as special interest or low-volume vehicles. It’s another illustration that this is a government of mistakes.”
The MIA says the solution is for an emergency amendment to the act to clarify that vehicles declared to be excluded in the accompanying regulations are excluded from the whole section on the clean vehicle standard.
